Cybex Fitness Blog

You Snooze, You Lose (Weight)

As I have mentioned in my previous Cybex Fitness Blog posts, High Satiety and High Satiety - Part 2, feeling satiated is critical to staying on track with one’s health and fitness goals.

With the start of the new year, new fitness resolutions are in full swing. As we resolve to stick to our exercise routines, I offer this reinforcement that you stick assiduously to a healthy sleep routine as well. Consider the following study:

More Sleep = Less Hunger

A new study suggests that increasing the amount of sleep that adults get could lead to reduced food intake, and the hormonal process differs between men and women.

Restricting sleep in healthy, normal weight participants affects food intake regulating hormones differently in men and women,” said Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, FAHA, the study’s principal investigator. “We were surprised by the effect of sleep on glucose and insulin, leptin, and sex differences in the hunger-stimulating hormone ghrelin and the satiety hormone GLP-1.”

The study, “Short Sleep Duration, Glucose Dysregulation and Hormonal Regulation of Appetite in Men and Women,” appearing in the November issue of the journal SLEEP, tracked the sleep duration, glucose dysregulation, and hormonal regulation of appetite in 27 normal weight, 30- to 45-year-old men and women. Participants provided fasting blood draws, and they were studied under two sleep conditions: Short (4 hours) or habitual (9 hours). Short sleep increased total ghrelin (the hunger hormone) levels in men but not women and reduced GLP-1 (the satiety hormone) levels in women but not in men, a sex difference that has not been reported before. The results suggest that the common susceptibility to overeat during short sleep is related to increased appetite in men and reduced feelings of fullness in women.

“Our results point to the complexity of the relationship between sleep duration and energy balance regulation,” St-Onge said. “The state of energy balance, whether someone is in a period of weight loss or weight gain, may be critical in the metabolic and hormonal responses to sleep restriction.” According to the authors, this is the largest controlled clinical investigation of the effects of sleep reduction on hormonal regulation of food intake. The results support a causal role of sleep duration on energy intake and weight control.

Bottom line: yet another study reinforces what we need to remind ourselves often, especially when pressed for time—early to bed, early to rise, helps flab from attaching itself to your thighs!

Holly Aglialoro Guest Blogger and Fitness Enthusiast

Cybex is a provider and manufacturer of premium commercial fitness equipment. Content featured in the Cybex Fitness Blog is meant to inspire healthy living and wellness and should not be taken as medical advice. For medical advice please consult a doctor.